 Well good morning, let me add my welcome to this August group. My name is Michael Weber and I'm the director of NRC's Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. As Bill alluded to, research co-sponsors this important conference. It's my privilege now to introduce Commissioner William Ostendorf. William, Commissioner Ostendorf served on the commission since April 19, excuse me, not that long. Since April 2010, and is approaching four decades of dedicated public service. Now you know the relation to the 19. Before coming to the NRC, Commissioner Ostendorf served as the principal deputy administrator for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, as well as holding senior positions at the National Academies and the House Armed Services Committee staff. And this service was preceded by a distinguished 26 year naval career, where he notably held command of a nuclear tech submarine as well as a submarine squadron. On the commission, he has served as a leader in numerous areas, including matters involving nuclear security and the post Fukushima regulatory actions. He earned a degree in systems engineering from the US Naval Academy and law degrees from the University of Texas and Georgetown University. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Commissioner Ostendorf. Thanks Mike, good morning. It's always a privilege to appear before this group. And I'd like to add my thanks to those of my colleagues, to the NRC staff who've arranged the RIC and have worked very hard over the last year to put this together. So Mike and Bill, I appreciate your work and that of your staffs and others supporting. I'd like to also personally thank the entire NRC staff for your professionalism and dedication over the past year. It is truly a privilege to work with you all. I'd also thank my colleagues here in the front row and the commission. You've already heard from Chairman Burns, Commissioner Speniky, tomorrow we'll hear from Commissioner Barron. We've heard insightful comments and perspectives from two, you'll hear a third set tomorrow from Jeff. And I just want to tell you personally it's been such a privilege and a pleasure to work with all of you. And I think this commission is just superb in how we've worked together and agreed to disagree at times, but more importantly, we've had respect for each other's views. And I really appreciate that from my colleagues here. Finally, I'd like to welcome Vic McCree to his first RIC as EDO. Vic has demonstrated his engaged, thoughtful leadership from day one. Thank you. Now, preparing remarks for today with my staff, I took a look back at my last five RIC speeches. And I need to correct one message from my first RIC speech delivered March 8th, 2011. In that address, I stated that serving on the Independent Regulatory Commission is not like being skipper of a nuclear attack submarine. I was wrong with respect to one central principle. I believe this correction to be important, so let me explain. Please bear with me for a few moments while I lay the foundation for this correction by returning to my experience in naval service. 1952, and I was not an active duty then, Mike. The US Navy destroyer Hobson collided with an aircraft carrier during night flight operations. There is extensive damage to the ships involved and heavy loss of life. The Wall Street Journal, in a frequently quoted discussion of the disaster in the following days, concluded the following, quote, on the sea there's a tradition older than the traditions of the country itself. It is the tradition that with responsibility goes authority, and with them both goes accountability. It is cruel, this accountability of good and well-intentioned men. But the choice is this, or an end to responsibility. For men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond accountability for what they do. End of quote. That message was loud and clear to me as an ensign when I was commissioned in 1976. It was reinforced and amplified as I assumed positions of greater responsibility in the six submarines in which I served. I was privileged to serve as commanding officer of USS Norfolk SSM 714 for three years and three days, driving that submarine over 100,000 miles from 1992 to 1995. That principle of accountability was always in the forefront of my mind and actions as I led my ward room, cheese quarters, and crew. After that tour I worked hard as a subland prospective commanding officer instructor and submarine squadron commander to affirm and assert the vital importance of accountability to my submarine commanding officers. What is this to do with the RIC? So what is the question I need to make to my 2011 RIC speech? It's very simple. That key principle of accountability is not limited to the Navy or the military. Rather, and I say this in all seriousness, it is alive and well here at the NRC. And that is a good thing, my friends. I see it firsthand every day in the accountability individual commissioners demonstrate in their own decision making. Now the commission, as Commissioner Svendiki noted earlier, we do not always agree. But even the face of disagreement has been my direct observation that all of my colleagues have acted with a sense of accountability for their decision making. That is a very important observation. While my primary experience in the past six years has been with commission decision making, I would also observe that this principle and sense of accountability is clearly present among the NRC staff and the industry we regulate. So I'm quite pleased to assess the need to correct those 2011 RIC remarks to reflect my updated observations on accountability. And to add to Chairman Byrne's discussion of maintaining trust, I urge you to remember that, quote, men will not trust leaders who do not hold themselves accountable for their actions, unquote. Having corrected the record, and I've said, let me move on to my primary remarks. This is my sixth opportunity to address you at the RIC. I use that word opportunity intentionally. To me, the RIC is a unique form to consider how it can learn from the experience of an eye toward the future. I'll jump right into that message. This month, as you all know, marks the fifth anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. I spoke many times in the past about the agency's progress as we moved along in a somewhat step-by-step fashion. But now, all of the key regulatory decisions have been made, implementation by the industry is well underway. So I'm going to reflect on our response over the past five years by looking at the big picture. Today's my opportunity to use the NRC's post-Fukushima actions as a case study to highlight the strength of the NRC's decision-making framework and our principles of good regulation. Why? Because not only do I think that we've gotten to a good place, but I am proud of how we've gotten here. Let me ask for a show of hands to the audience of all those people, NRC, industry vendors who had anything to do with post-Fukushima decision-making or concerns. I note there's a lot of hands there, probably a lot of hands, and people watching on the webinar. Thank you. The NRC's decision-making on these matters not only affected all of you, it also impacted the lives of every person who could be affected by an accident at a nuclear power plant. I say that to stress the importance of our getting it right the first time. Along with my good friend and dear colleague, Commissioner Sfenike, I was here in March 2011. We both have been involved in all the commissions post-Fukushima decision-making. 2012 I visited Japan and toured Fukushima Daiichi with fellow commissioner and good friend Bill Magwood. I had a follow-up visit to Japan in 2014. I think I have a fairly solid understanding of what took place there and why. We have thoroughly studied the circumstances that led up to the accident and the lessons we have learned have guided the regulatory actions we, the NRC, have taken. Now in my opinion, the NRC should use these post-Fukushima decision-making lessons as a guide for the future. I am going to quickly cover three specific areas that are my most significant takeaways from how the NRC has fulfilled its responsibilities as a regulator in the context of Fukushima decision-making. First, the importance of establishing clear priorities. Second, the importance of integrated decision-making under our existing regulatory framework. And third, the importance of regulating the open. Let us first turn to the prioritization of post-Fukushima actions. The Tier 1, 2, and 3 risk-informed approach recommended by the staff and approved by the commission placed those regulatory actions with the greatest potential for safety improvement at the top of the list. Prioritization was absolutely essential because as the saying goes, if everything is important, nothing is. The Tier 1 actions, the most significant safety enhancements, are being realized today. I have visited 48 reactor sites in the United States that cover 77 of the 99 currently operating plants. I am struck by the significant plant modifications underway or in place today. This has not just been an exercise on paper. We aren't just writing reports. Each site has invested tens of millions of dollars into post-Fukushima upgrades. These upgrades have clearly resulted in tangible enhancements to plant safety. Licensees have seen significant reductions in the estimated core damage frequency for their plants as a result of these post-Fukushima upgrades. There is an obvious pride in the work that has been done by licensees and the NRC staff and the resulting safety improvements. The regulated industry has played a substantial role in the development of these safety requirements. At the NRC celebration of the 25th anniversary of the principles of good regulation in January of this year, former Commissioner Ken Rogers reminded me that while the NRC is a regulator, the industry must retain its sense of accountability for safety. I think that is happening here. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel for less safety significant Tier 2 and Tier 3 recommendations. On February 8th, the Commission approved a plan to close out those actions. I don't mean to imply that we're trying to hurry and close out these things so we can cross them off a list. Rather, it's important that we systematically work through our processes and disposition these actions professionally. Once we have the information we need, we must be a reliable regulator and promptly and decisively take action. We could have analyzed the Daiichi accident for years before taking any action. But in my view, that would not have been responsible regulation. I am personally gratified to confirm that the NRC captured the key lessons from the accident through our initial assessment by the near-term task force as supplemented by additional analysis by our Japan Lessons Learned Directorate and Fukushima Steering Committee. I have not seen information from further studies that cause and de-questions the actions we have taken in the United States. Let us now turn to the second key lesson, the importance of integrated decision-making under our existing regulatory framework. I'll offer a few examples to illustrate how we used smart decision-making within our existing regulatory framework to disposition post-Fukushima actions. But before I do that, I want to quickly go through and talk about a topic that the Chairman discussed, how safe is safe enough? What standard does the NRC Commission use? That standard comes from the Atomic Energy Act. We are required to ensure that our licensees provide adequate protection of public health and safety. If we determine that something is needed to ensure adequate protection, we will impose a requirement without regard to cost. On the other hand, if we determine that a requirement is not necessary for adequate protection, but that it would provide a substantial increase in safety, then we only impose that requirement if it passes a cost-benefit analysis. We have codified that requirement in the back-fit rule. One example of those concepts is illustrated by the topic of reliable hard events. In 2012, the Commission issued an order for reliable hard events, a boiling-water reactors with Mark I and Mark II containment, as a matter of adequate protection. The NRC staff subsequently evaluated whether we should require that such events also be, quote, severe accident, unquote, capable. Accounting for uncertainties regarding the frequency of a severe accident, the staff determined that severe accident capability would provide a substantial safety benefit that was cost-justified. The Commission agreed with the staff's assessment, and in 2013 rescinded the original order and issued another, which required reliable and severe accident-capable events. That is one area where safety improvement passed the cost-benefit back-fit test. There have been others that haven't. The fact that some of the proposed improvements did not get adopted should not be viewed as a problem. Another highly visible example is our ongoing mitigation of beyond-design basis event rulemaking. In 2012, within a year of the accident in Japan, we issued our initial orders. We were then able to step back and take a deep breath. We realized that we, the regulator, the industry, and the public would be better served if we integrated a number of task force recommendations into rulemaking to address the whole spectrum of beyond-design basis events. I thank Mike Johnson and his team for their efforts in this area. Because of this integration, we have had a better level of protection, because we have brought all these things together into one discussion, one dialogue, one consideration. This rulemaking provides us with that comprehensive integrated suite of safety enhancements. As Vic McCree showed earlier in the slides today, it integrates six of the near-term task force recommendations, including enhanced mitigation capability for station blackout events, spent fuel pool instrumentation, on-site emergency response capabilities, and emergency preparedness. This rulemaking, in my opinion, represents a major step forward. The consolidation was an efficient strategy given the interdependent and interrelated safety issues involved. Initially, a number of the key safety enhancements were realized through licensee implementation of the 2012 NRC orders. The mitigation of beyond-design basis events rulemaking now codifies those requirements and makes them generally applicable to future licensees in addition to current licensees. I approved publication of the proposed rule with one exception which I'll now briefly address. I disapproved the staff's proposal to impose requirements for severe accident management guidelines for SAMGs. The staff's regulatory analysis found that SAMGs would have a small safety benefit. The staff cited what we call defense in depth that would be gained from requiring SAMGs, but was unable to quantify a benefit that would outweigh the cost of requiring SAMGs. The commission concluded that requiring SAMGs was not cost-justified. This rulemaking serves as an example of how the NRC's regulatory framework provided stability and reliability throughout the decision-making process. The concepts of adequate protection of public health and safety, as well as our back-fit rule, are vitally important regulatory principles. I'll have one final example to share on our decision-making. In keeping with NRC's principle of efficiency, regulatory activities should be consistent with the degree of risk reduction they achieve. This principle goes on to state where several effective alternatives are available. The option that minimizes the use of resources should be adopted. Last summer, the staff asked for commission approval to publish a draft regulatory basis for containment protection and release reduction rulemaking. I voted not to approve the staff's proposal. In that case, the proposed rule would have codified orders that are already in place. And the orders have the same legal and enforcement effect as a new rule would. Furthermore, we do not expect any new applicants for Mark 1 and Mark 2 containment to come before the commission. So there would be no safety benefit to offset the cost of the rulemaking. The commission had also previously directed outreach for state with stakeholders when it developed these orders. So rulemaking would not likely have provided new information for the staff and the commission to consider. I think we made a smart decision. I'll now turn to the final sniffing regulatory lesson learned from the post-Fubushima experience. The importance of regulating the open. This has a direct nexus from my previous discussion of the concept of accountability. Early on in the process, the commission directed the staff to engage in diversity of stakeholders throughout the development of the technical bases in rulemaking. As such, there has been a high level of stakeholder engagement throughout the staff's process of developing recommendations for the commission. To date, there have been about 300 public meetings, 300 public meetings convened by the NRC on post-Fubushima regulatory actions. We've maintained openness because nuclear regulation is the public's business. It must be conducted openly and candidly. The commission's decisions have also been open and transparent. I'll spend a brief moment discussing how the commission itself, whether five-person or a four-person commission, makes decisions. For the Fukushima actions, we relied on the task force and director to provide us with recommendations. There have been recommendations for orders, for proposed rules, and recommendations to stop action on some early recommendations after more complete technical analysis by our staff. Those staff recommendations came to the commission in formal papers that are publicly available. Most of the time, the staff's recommendations are public as soon as they come to the commission. We don't wait until the commission has made a decision to release them. So you can see what the staff recommends, and later, whether the commission approves or disapproves the recommendation in whole or in part. The commission reviews the staff's recommendations and holds public meetings when they're appropriate. Each commissioner often seeks briefings from the staff, experts, who work in these recommendations. The commission uses a process called notation voting, in which each commissioner writes a vote that not only records whether he or she approves the recommendation, but also explains why. In these votes, we might also include additional direction to the staff on particular items. After all the commissioners have voted, the NRC's office of the secretary goes through the votes, tallies them, and puts together what we call a draft staff requirements memorandum. That document captures the elements of the staff's recommendation that were approved or not approved by each commissioner, and also includes each commissioner's additional comments. The commissioners then vote on the draft staff requirements memorandum. It takes the majority of the commission to include each additional direction or to change a policy. Now we may go through a few rounds of voting before the final product has the majority, and our voting process also gives our staff a chance to comment on the commission's direction and to raise any concerns they may have. I find that this formal structured open voting process is a real strength of the NRC in the commission in which I serve. You do not have to wonder how a commissioner weighed in on different issues. There is a clear public record of the basis for all of our votes, including the post Fukushima actions. By my count on Fukushima related actions alone, I have cast 25 separate votes, all of them on our website. That is how you can hold me accountable for my actions. I am proud this is how the NRC regulates. I will now close. I want to take a moment and thank my personal staff for their hard work and dedication. They are a tremendous group of people who take their work seriously, but they don't take themselves too seriously and they take care of each other. We enjoy an open and collaborative work environment, even though our professional football allegiances are wildly divergent. Two agnostics, two Steeler fans, two Patriot fans, and one extremely devoted Dallas Cowboy fan, that would be me. Team WCO, I thank you all. First to acknowledge my current team, Eric Benner, Tammy Bloomer, Amy Covage, Molly Marsh. Because this is my last rick, I'd like to also thank the staff who have worked for me since 2010. Ho Ni, Jason Zorn, Mike Franovich, Andrew Cook, John Tappert, Kimberly Sexton, Kathy Kanaitis, Greg Warnick, Jeanette Cuisenberry. Last but not least, Linda Hur and Sonny Bosen, who have been with me since my first day, April 1st of 2010. I'm most grateful for your support and friendship. I'll end on a personal note, I've had a few titles over the years, like many of you. I've been called Captain, Dad, Counsel, Administrator, Director, Commissioner, Hey You, Grandpa, by my two-year-old granddaughter, Dylan, and now I'll be going to another title. My term ends in June. I've accepted a position at the Naval Academy as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of National Security. I'll start teaching in August. I look forward to returning to my alma mater and sharing my experience with a new generation of naval officers. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the commission with my colleagues and with NRC staff. It's been a most rewarding experience professionally and personally. The NRC does really good and important work. And I've been proud to stand beside you the last six years. It's been a pleasure to work with you all. Thank you. Well, we have a few questions here, Commissioner. In reflecting on your federal service, what was most valuable during that service as a commissioner, as a member of the nuclear navy, in serving law, in Congress? I had to say my Navy experience. I mean, I was a Rick Overguy. I'm going to give you one quick sea story, but I think it relates to things that Vic is working on with his leadership team. That is safety culture. 1978 had been a recently qualified engineering officer watch on USS George Bancroft, SSBN 643 Gold Crew. During the watch, and I was probably like 23 years old at the time, our throttlement with main cooling pumps and slow speed. Some of you have been there in S5W plants. When we shifted rat to cooling pumps, the main cooling pumps to fast speed, the throttles got ahead of the pumps. And so we had a power to flow scram. I was shaking my boots as a newly qualified engineering officer watch, this was probably my third watch. Did a fast recovery start up. After watch, we had a post watch critique. And I thought the engineer and the commanding officer would come in and just really lay on me. And they didn't. They came in and said, let's have a critique in the ward room. Let's bring all the watch standards up forward. Let's see what happened. Let's discuss the facts of the incident. What were the root causes? As Commissioner Svendiki noted earlier. And let's make sure we understand what happened and why. And then we'll write Amarick over incident report and do some training. I was stunned by the openness and clarity of the critique that occurred now 38 years ago on George Bancroft. And as I started on five other submarines after that and I was engineering an old attack submarine and commanding officer submarine, I think that nuclear operating experience has served me very well. So that's been my highlight. Okay. Thank you. Along the same lines, do you have any regrets or unfinished tasks from your tenure as a commissioner at the NRC? No regrets. Not at all. I would say I am, and Chairman made this reference earlier, I'm disappointed as to where the country is on not having a geologic repository for high level waste. I think that that is a significant shortcoming of government. I don't think it's been handled quite frankly with enough urgency and objectivity. I'm very proud of the work the NRC staff has done here on this area. But I think elsewhere in government it's been a shortcoming, so that's what I would leave you with. Okay. Thank you. This commenter thanks you for your service and reflects on your many good comments today, balancing risk and regulation. And adds a question, do you think we have achieved the right balance on physical and cyber security programs? I'd say that, let me address this because I spent some time on security issues as a commissioner. I believe that our commercial nuclear facilities, whether it be power plants, fuel facilities, materials, licensees, I believe that the security posture is robust and comprehensive for physical security. In the cyber security arena, I know that licensees are still working on implementing all the milestones for the 2009 Cyber Security Rule. I think the rule itself is a good rule. I think our staff, led by, going back to when Jim Wiggins was here and then sir, Jim, Barry Westrick, Russ Feltz, Brian Holian, have worked hard to look at a more consequence-based approach for cyber security to risk inform those critical digital asset determinations in a positive way. I can't rule out there may not be need for further adjustment to the cyber rule as we go forward. Thank you. This questioner notes that reduced core damage frequency estimates are good news, but do they tell the whole story? It goes on to point out that the core damage frequency estimates at Fukushima did not anticipate what happened. How do we get the whole picture in probabilistic risk assessment? Or can we ever get the whole picture? That's a very thoughtful question. I thank the questioner who posed that. I acknowledge that core damage frequency by itself is not an adequate metric. But I would say that in the context of Fukushima, the work that we have directed for seismic and flooding hazard re-evaluations has been very significant. Much of that work is still continuing in certain areas. And I believe that when we look at the combination of seismic, flooding, station blackout, which is manifested in mitigation of beyond design basis event rulemaking, I think we'll be in a very solid position. This commenter notes that we've made great progress following the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. However, in hindsight, was the near term task force broad scope and recommendations premature given the relative limited understanding of the real causes of the accident at the time the near term task force was conducted? You've had the benefit of reflecting on that in your service as a commissioner. I'll try to answer this the best I can. I saw Marty Virgilio earlier this morning and Marty was in Mike Johnson's position in the fall of 2011 when we were looking at Secchi 11-0-1-3-7, a very key vote that Commissioner Svendick and I voted on associate of the prioritization activities for the near term task force. I think the prioritization activities that were undergone by the staff under commission direction at time were appropriate, were the best fit for what we knew about Fukushima. I did not vote to support immediately going into the recommendation one looking at the overhaul of our regulatory framework. I'm afraid if we had looked at the overall framework first, we would just now maybe be getting some actions here in 2016. So I think in hindsight, I personally think we did the right thing to say let's go ahead and move forward with these tier one, tier two, and tier three action items and this hold off for any review of the framework is a separate distinct body of work. Thank you. What practical consequences do you see resulting from the Vienna Declaration on Nuclear Safety that came out of the diplomatic conference on the margins of the Convention on Nuclear Safety? I think based on discussions I've had with our international program staff, with Chairman Burns, with our State Department colleagues, I think we'll see hopefully renewed engagement by the international community and activities associated with the convention. And I think that's a real key message that everybody will hopefully rally around as a need for engagement participation in those activities. Okay. Shifting gears to small modular reactors, is the NRC fully prepared to meet the 42 month commitment in the schedule for SMR licensing? I believe we are. Now, I met with Mike Mayfield, Diane Jackson, Debbie Jackson, Jennifer Ewell in the last three weeks after I attended an advanced reactor summit that the Nuclear Infrastructure Council put on at Oak Ridge last month. I've discussed this at some length with Amy Cubbage and my personal staff. I believe that the NRC staff is ready to receive the new scale license application here at the end of this calendar year. I do believe the time period that our staff has advertised for processing a well put together application is 39 months. Okay. Keeping on the theme of SMRs, this question begins with Go Navy. There are a number of potential SMR vendors who say that they're completely designing out the severe accident like what happened at Fukushima. They range in megawatt level coolant type, fuel type, and even include nuclear fusion designs. What are your thoughts on how the vendors and the NRC staff should address this part of design certification reviews so as not to be too lax or too strict? When I was in Oak Ridge on February 11th, I had a chance to hear from maybe four to six different groups talking about different non-light water reactor technologies. So I'm going to answer this from the standpoint of SMRs and non-light water reactor technologies that are being discussed in the industry, vendors, and in different other organizations. And I'm going to go back to a comment that Victor McCreme made earlier today, and it's one that I've heard from Mike Johnson and Jennifer Ewell, is NRC staff's willingness to take a stepwise approach in the context of topical report by analogy and look at a discreet conceptual design proposal in a way that early on gives feedback to a prospective applicant. And we've seen this happen before in a very successful way in this agency. This agency had a lot of experience back in the 1990s with sodium pebble bed reactors and so forth. So I don't think that there's a key concern here. I think this commitment by the NRC staff to be willing to use a stepwise approach under our existing framework will get us there. All right. And one last question here on advanced reactors. This commenter is pleased to see the $5 million budget request off the fee base for advanced reactor preparations, but what is the $5 million for and is it enough? Well, it's two questions there. Certainly the $5 million is going to help our staff get up to speed in some of the technologies. It's going to allow us to conduct some outreach with other organizations working on advanced reactor technology development. And it will also help identify in certain areas any regulatory gaps we may have for a particular type of technology. So that's what money is supposed to go towards. As far as is the $5 million enough, I think it's a good start. I would not hopefully not see this as being a fiscal year 17 budget item, and then it disappear after that. I think we have to kind of build the case, walk before we run, deal this $5 million in a responsible good stewardship manner, and then look towards perhaps what might be appropriate for the future. All right. From your perspective as a commissioner, what is NRC's responsibility in educating the general public to understand the issues regarding nuclear safety and security? I think we have a significant responsibility. And I think the chairman and Victor both talked about this. I believe we try very hard to communicate to the public in terms that the public can understand what the risks are from nuclear facilities under different circumstances, etc. Bill Magrid and I put out a column in 2011 on this topic. I give a Rick speech in 2012 on this topic. I think people are working very hard in this area. It's one where you've never finished the job. This need will always be there. But it's important for us to take the time and to have those tailored communications, I say tailored to the audience and the scientific literacy that's before us as an agency. Okay. You cited the value of cost benefit analysis to determine whether safety enhancements are appropriate. Such analyses are only as good as the estimates of cost and safety improvement. Are you satisfied with the validity of the NRC's cost estimates in light of information that the industry has supplied? No. Do you want to elaborate? Yeah, I will. I will. When I first got here, I think Hody's out there someplace in the audience and Jason's on back in 2010, we were talking about the agency's experience of the Part 73 rulemaking and the security, physical security enhancements. And I think that's one where from a case study, we didn't do a good job and neither did industry. And I think the lack of fidelity of cost estimates in that Part 73 rulemaking served as a kind of a wake-up call for the agency to realize we need to do better, but we can't get to a better place without industry's more thoughtful input. I do think there's been enhanced awareness of this in the last three or four years in the context of cumulative effects of regulation, in the context of cost benefit analyses for regulatory decision-making under the backfit rule. I think we're making improvement. I don't think we're where we need to be. Thank you. Commissioner, you've suggested that the NRC should liberally interpret the Atomic Energy Act's prohibition on foreign ownership control and domination of production and utilization facilities. Do you think the commission will have another opportunity to consider this issue? Well, first I'm going to go back to a meeting we had, I believe it was in January 2015 on this topic, and we had some extremely helpful insights external to the nuclear industry from the Department of Defense from the aerospace industry and other sectors. Commission colleagues, we all engaged in voting on this topic, our votes are on our website, and I think you can see a very rich discussion on the foreign ownership control and domination piece in our website. So I think all of us recognize that the world today, as of the time we voted back in 2015, the world in 2015 is not the same as it was in 1954 when the Atomic Energy Act was passed. The globalization of the economy that 60 years ago people thought that all of the nuclear technology would really be controlled by the United States. That is far from the case today. So I think if you look at Commissioner Votes on this, you'll see a very comprehensive discussion by all four commissioners on this topic. I don't see anything right before the commission here in the near term that would suggest a revision of this, but I think the commission, if the issue comes up again, will deal with it. All right. Here's a question for you. What's the status of the Yucca Mountain license application review, and will NRC seek funds to resume the hearing process? I think we were asked this at a congressional hearing recently. Well, certainly our staff did a superb job of completing the safety evaluation report, putting that out in the public in January 2015, completing the environmental impact statement. Still working on the South Mill Environmental Impact Statement, which I believe is due out, I believe sometime this fall. There are not funds in the current budget request to address the hearing adjudication issues you're asking about. So the second part of that, will the commission seek the resources? Well, the commission, in the context of the fiscal year 2017 budget and recognizing that this is part of an administration, office of management and budget OMB process, the budget request that went to the Congress did not include those funds. I'll tell you, I'll speak for myself. I have personally supported those funds and passed votes. Thank you. What role, if any, does the Atomic Energy Commission's concept of beyond regulatory concern play, especially with respect to the Fukushima actions? I think the question might twist a variety of different concepts there, but I'm sure you'll be able to address it in terms of Fukushima. Well, I'll just say without going, I'm not sure where, what year that pronouncement came out, but I'll tell you that in the context of the near term task force report, let me make this statement. The near term task force group under Charlie Miller and Company did a superb job. But let me just clarify what they did do. They didn't necessarily say go regulate this additionally or that additionally. They said, go look at these areas. There's a big difference between exploring and analyzing a given area on the one hand, which is what they teed up, and the other hand suggesting go add additional requirement X, Y, or Z over here. So I bring that up because I think to answer the question, Mike, I believe that near term task force, the Japan Lessons Learned Directorate, the steering committee, and the numerous commission votes we've had have had some things have come up that we did not believe needed to be regulated. And so therefore perhaps following the category of beyond regulatory concern. Okay, thanks. If there are no more questions, we might actually complete early because I've gone through the questions. Commissioners, when they leave the agency, seldom have the opportunity to have such an audience. As you may know within the NRC, we typically have a farewell Godspeed kind of ceremony in honor of our commissioners, and this is not your departure from the commission. But I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to applaud you and your leadership on the commission and wish you every best in the future. Thank you, Mike. Thank you all.